Mr. Ger Deering:

It would be a huge loss to us. I use this regularly. Mr. Joyce has mentioned High Court cases, but there are High Court cases where this has been very usefully upheld in terms of appeals by providers against decisions we have made. The best thing I can do is give an example. The ombudsman found in favour of a complainant and made an award that compensation was to go to the complainant, but it should technically have gone to the estate and not the named complainant. We were able to rely on this and the judge was able to state the beneficiaries and the complainant are the same people. The judge in the case specifically used this and there are other examples.

I cannot stress enough this is an extremely important provision to us. It has been very beneficial. I cannot see any advantage, frankly, of taking it out. It allows us to operate unlike a court. It is hugely beneficial to complainants who come to us who are not legalled up. I can understand how legal people would want this, but I cannot understand how consumers would benefit from taking it out. It is of huge benefit to us in terms of the processes we have changed. When we conducted our strategic and operational review everybody, without exception, responded there is too much paper, it is too legalistic and it takes to long. They said they wanted a fast informal means of resolving complaints.

The survey we carried out showed that of the people who had complained to their bank and came to us, 80% of them never got to speak to anybody in the financial institution. They had to deal with them by paper. I should clarify this is with regard to organisations which employ more than 50 people, but this is all the banks and insurance companies. Interestingly, the reverse was the case of the smaller brokers and those who employ fewer than 50 people, whereby 80% of people had an opportunity to speak to somebody. In cases involving the larger providers, 80% never had an opportunity to speak to somebody. We believe that if they had they might have resolved the complaint. They then came into a system where they were expected to deal with a complaint in writing again and they were already frustrated.

This is an extremely important provision. It is worth repeating that the Financial Services Ombudsman is entitled to perform the functions imposed and exercise the power conferred by the Act free from interference from any other person and when dealing with a particular complaint is required to act in an informal manner and according to equity, good conscience and the substantial merit of the complaint without regard to technicality or legal form. It allows us to adapt our procedures. It does not absolve us from fair procedures. Under no circumstances can any organisation ignore fair procedures and the law. I have no doubt it would be a one-sided benefit to the providers were we to take it out.